He shot a series of photographs of Colleen in a variety of outfits and backgrounds, featuring her now classic Dutch-boy bob hairstyle. The image became a classic and was used extensively by First National in advertising her films and personality.

The Perfect Flapper was released in May, and was the second of her strictly "flapper" films, as opposed to films with flapper elements in them. The flapper films took a distinctly comedic tilt, a way of diffusing problematic questions about why a young woman was behaving in such outlandish ways. Her later flapper films often went out of their way to illustrate that her characters behavior was often innocent beneath the veneer of raciness.It was a busy time for Colleen. Not only was she busty at the studio with her film work, but she did promotional work as well. The studio knew they had a guaranteed money-maker in Colleen, and Colleen was ready to do anything for the studio that had given her the fame she had wanted. John was kept busy with his duties at the studio as well. Besides Colleen’s films, he was producing other films at the same time as well as managing production. As a result, sometimes John would become irritable. Colleen began to register the signs that John was about to engage in a bender.

John would become irritable and tense. Sometimes he would ask to have a single drink, just to relieve the tension, promising it would go no further than that... and it usually turned out to be like a dam bursting. He would go on a bender, disappear for a day or two, and usually return out of the blue unshaven and disheveled and apologetic. He became aggressive when he was drunk, had likely seen his share of fights. In spite of being rejected by the draft board, he was still a big man, doubtless intimidating when fired up.

As time wore on Colleen settled into several different coping strategies. At first she accommodated him, thinking that at the root of John's problems was stress, given the energy with which he threw himself into his projects. She would hope that he would blow off a little steam and then return to normal. It never worked. Later she did her best to ignore his problems at home, cover for him at work during his disappearances. Today, she would be seen as the classic enabler. She came to see his drinking as a sickness, did not realize the drinking was a symptom of a disorder that would later come to be called bipolar disorder.

McCormick's career was on the rise in the First National organization, but as it happens their marriage was off to a rocky start. It would be easy to assume that John's rise was due mostly to his marriage to an actress who had become a Grade A Certified profit machine to the studio, but it would mean dismissing the fact that he also possessed a sharp mind for business and spotting an opportunity. He was usually energetic and charming and everyone in the organization saw his value. However Colleen saw that he was not always a live wire.

On May 11th the Los Angeles Examiner ran a story entitled “France Calling Colleen Moore.” Colleen's brother Cleeve, who had had a few small parts in Colleen's films, including  a turn before the lens as one of the swimmers in Flaming Youth, was trying out for a spot as a swimmer and diver in the American team for the upcoming Olympics. Colleen, according to the story, was looking for a story set in France in hopes that she would be able to watch Cleeve compete. Cleeve was not as certain as she that he was going to make the final cut.